The Review: Right-Wing Donor Interference at Yale?

On a bizarre situation involving Henry Kissinger. ADVERTISEMENT [Academe Today Logo]( Did someone forward you this newsletter? [Sign up free]( to receive your own copy. At [The New York Times]( Jennifer Schuessler reports that Beverly Gage, formerly director of the Grand Strategy program at Yale, has resigned from that position over what she felt was meddling from the administration. The short version is this: When two donors, Nicholas F. Brady and Charles B. Johnson, endowed the program with $17.5 million in 2006, a condition of the donation was the establishment of a “board of visitors.” Somehow the board was never set up — and recently, the donors began to complain about that. I asked Pericles Lewis, Yale’s vice president for global strategy and vice provost for academic initiatives, what was going on. By email, he explained: Under the terms of the 2006 agreement, appointments of practitioners as Distinguished Fellows are made by a faculty committee chaired by the director of the program (currently Bev Gage) and approved by the provost’s office like other appointments. … When appointing practitioners as Distinguished Fellows, the committee is expected to consult with the Board of Visitors, which is appointed by the President. The Board of Visitors has no other responsibility other than advising on the appointment of practitioners. It has no appointment or veto powers. Note that this applies only to practitioners. The board of visitors has no role in the appointment of faculty or review of the curriculum, and the practitioners do not teach their own classes — they co-teach with a faculty member. In other words, the board of visitors has no appointment power whatsoever, and the donors have no say in the selection of the board, which is entirely at the discretion of Yale’s president, Peter Salovey. All that’s required contractually is that the faculty committee with the real power give the board an ear. The board of visitors is an essentially symbolic entity. But symbolism is important, and Salovey, having been prodded to establish the board, evidently wanted to impress his donors by stuffing it with their kind of guy: As Schuessler reported, the board “would be dominated by conservative figures of the donors’ choosing, including, against her strong objections, Henry A. Kissinger, the former secretary of state under President Richard M. Nixon.” It might have no real power, but that doesn’t mean its composition is meaningless. Kissinger is a 98-year-old man whom many revile as someone they think should be charged with[war crimes](. Why was it so important to include him on the formally powerless board? And, given that the composition of the board is entirely up to Salovey, why didn’t he follow Gage’s lead, rather than the donors’? When formal autonomy is so noisily contradicted by symbolism, should any faculty member trust an administration to maintain it? Beverly Gage smelled a rat. I do, too. SPONSOR CONTENT | HUMBOLDT-UNIVERSITAT ZU BERLIN [Learn how colleges are leveraging international collaboration to nurture global citizens.]( ADVERTISEMENT SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHRONICLE Enjoying the newsletter? [Subscribe today]( for unlimited access to essential news, analysis, and advice. The Latest THE REVIEW [Queer History Should Focus on Queer People]( By Jim Downs [STORY IMAGE]( Sexless, impersonal academic approaches tell us little about the lived experiences of the LGBT community. 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